引用
台灣族群不平等的再探討:解釋本省/外省族群差異的縮減
When Social Reproduction Fails: Explaining the Decreasing Ethnic Gap in Taiwan
作者:蘇國賢(Kuo-Hsien Su)、喻維欣(Wei-Hsin Yu) | 首次發表於 2020-06-29 | 第 39 期 December 2007
DOI:https://dx.doi.org/10.6786/TJS.200712_(39).0001
研究論文(Research Articles)
論文資訊 | Article information
摘要 Abstract
戰後外省大量移民改變了台灣人口結構,使台灣頓時成為多元族群的社會。過去文獻指出,僅管族群差異逐漸縮減,本省人的社會經濟地位仍較外省人為低。有些學者提出政治排外的論述來解釋族群不平等, 另有學者從家庭背景(如父母社經地位與父母教育程度、語言文化等)來討論影響不平等再製的因素。本文首先運用「台灣社會變遷基本調查」匯整資料來分析外省與本省族群在教育年數與初職職業聲望上的長期趨勢,發現兩者差異急速縮減。由此引出本文的問題:「何以外省人 作為一個優勢外來移民,無法持續其優勢地位?」奠基於蔡淑鈴等國內學者在族群不平等的先驅研究,本文試圖提出一個本省/外省差異縮減的可能解釋架構。從「79年戶口及住宅普查」資料的分析中,我們發現外省人有集中在公部門的情形,且外省人就讀文組或從事語言媒體相關職業的比例偏高。我們進一步運用「台灣教育長期追蹤資料庫」,針對中學生的認知能力進行分析,推論語言能力在聯考中的相對比較優勢及職業文化上的親近性,可能是導致外省人就讀文科或從事文職比例偏高的原因。這些實證發現指出,外省人移民初期在職業上的類聚與分佈,對於其後代的志向選擇及市場競爭能力有長遠的影響;由於語言上的比較優勢、文化上的親近性、及職業類聚的影響,導致外省人比較可能任職於公部門等較難累積「創租資才」、且不易透過代間移轉來繼承優勢的職業。這種在機會結構及競爭場域中的差異性人口分佈,可能是導致外省與本省族群社經地位迅速平等化甚至逆轉的重要結構性因素。

關鍵詞:族群不平等、族群類聚、文化資本
The postwar influx of migrants from Mainland China—“Mainlanders” — rapidly and significantly increased ethnic diversity in Taiwan. Previous research comparing their socioeconomic attainments with those of native Taiwanese—“Islanders”—has consistently identified the first group’s advantages. However, such ethnic differences have apparently decreased over time. Factors commonly used to explain Taiwan’s ethnic inequality generally fail to account for the Mainlanders’ inability to reproduce their socioeconomic advantages across generations. In this paper we focus on the question of why ethnic gaps in education and occupational status have narrowed or closed over time. Using TSCS data collected over several years, we first demonstrate how the two groups have converged in terms of years of education and first occupation status. Next, we use the population census to examine ethnic segregation by college major and occupation, and report that Mainlanders are more likely than Islanders to major in the humanities. Our analysis of a separate set of TEPS data suggests that this is a result of the Mainlanders’ comparative advantage in language skills. Consistent with their choice of major, Mainlanders are also less likely to hold jobs that are conducive to “rent-generating”assets. We therefore argue that the cultural and linguistic affinity, plus the higher concentration of public sector workers among early generation Mainlanders living on Taiwan, have all affected their descendents’ strategies for both educational and commercial success. As an unintended consequence, occupational segregation by ethnicity has accelerated the equalization process, thereby accounting for (at least in part) the convergence and possible reversal of trends in educational and occupational inequalities.

Keywords: Ethnic inequality, ethnic homophily, cultural capital